The Revelation in the Memory
by macrauchenia
Summary: "His office needed to be cleared of personal effects. Booth was the first to volunteer." [Season 10 Angst] Agent Booth comes to terms with losing one of their own after sifting through valuable memories.


**Disclaimer: **I own nothing. Not a thing.

**Author's Note: **Alright. Ouch. Seriously.  
What the hell?! I don't even know what to say, except that I'm literally traumatized by this season. And we've only made it to the second episode. I've only been able to work on this fic in shreds, since it hurts. Everything hurts.  
Literally, this was the title for this fic up until ten minutes ago: "THE FREAKING EPISODE ANGST THAT SHOT ME THROUGH THE FREAKING HEART AND I WILL NEVER BE HAPPY AGAIN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE"

This little shot is meant to be sort of immediately right after Sweets died (like when Booth headed back to the Hoover after they started the autopsy on Sweets). As in, everything is still sort of fresh and chaotic. That's why I used such an erratic style of writing (with the super confusing shift from present to past tense). Hopefully everything comes out alright. If it doesn't, take pity of me. I'm seriously in physical pain every time I think about this.

**Also!** A relatively big reference to the end is to another Sweets-centric fic I wrote earlier called "The Sixth on the List" (it's fluff and happy, but it will only make you suffer more now). You don't need to know much from it other than when Booth talked about his "favorite" people in the 8 finale, Sweets made a little list of who they would be.

* * *

_His_ office needed to be cleared of personal effects.

Booth was the first to volunteer.

(_God, Sweets. Why didn't you just let me take the damn papers? Why'd you have to volunteer?)_

Agent Aubrey offered to help, but Booth politely smiled and insisted that this was something that he had to do himself.

_(Just a kid with a gun. Too young to be tangled up in all this.)_

_("I'm a federal agent, not a baby sitter." Isn't that what I wanted to say when I walked in your office the first time?)_

Entering the kid's office hurt more than Booth thought it would. How many times had he crossed the door's threshold, fifteen minutes late for an appointment, grinning sheepishly at the scowling psychologist? Realizing he would never have another appointment sent streaks of pain down the agent's gut, nearly causing him to back out of the room in that terrible moment and call for Aubrey.

_No, I have to do this alone._

Booth yearned to see the young man spin in his desk chair and greet the agent with a sarcastic "I _do_ have office hours." He wanted to see him do it again and again. Just as he had every time the older man burst into the room, complaining about teething and dinosaurs and bones and whatever else drove his little family into temporary madness.

(Booth can't remember the last time he scheduled and honest-to-God appointment with the psychologist. Maybe three years ago? Maybe four?)

Regardless of the piles of folders and tabs on the screen, the psychologist would infallibly smile tiredly and offered his best solution to the problem. Always the young man managed to find some answer, as if he simply waved the issue away with his shrink-y magic eraser.

Tearing his gaze from the empty, unspinning desk chair and the plush couches—impression-less and cold without anyone to lounge back in them and insist they take his analysis seriously—Booth slowly entered the room, closing the door softly behind him.

(_I can't believe the Bureau wants me to talk to a ten year old about my relationship with Bones. I bet his parents haven't even give him the "birds and the bees" talk yet. How's some shrink going to help?)_

Ghostly images and memories from a thousand taken-for-granted sessions blurred together in the red, sickly light produced by the blinking alarm clock. The calming reverie was broken by the loud sound of traffic outside the window. Booth blinked, shook his head to dispel the foggy recollections, and stepped deeper into the empty office.

It was late and the artificial, dying light from street wasn't enough to work by. He had to flip the light on, his fingers fumbling numbly over the switch. Light harshly flooded the room, leaving the agent temporarily blinded.

Sweets had gone straight to meet Booth—never getting a chance to turn on the desk lamp or adjust the heat earlier that morning.

The room was icy cold. Booth shivered despite the heat broiling underneath his skin. No longer garbed in his traditional suit, the agent felt bare in his thin shirt and jeans. They were still stained—Booth hadn't had time to go home and change yet. Wearing the ruined clothes made his stomach turn, but he still couldn't part with them yet.

Swallowing his discomfort and prickling hairs on the back of his next, Booth slowly surveyed the room to determine the least painful place to begin.

Eyeing the psychologist's desk and laptop, Booth skirted carefully around the couches and stopped in front of the young man's collection of text books and research journals. It would be easier to start with the impersonal things that made Sweets more like a random victim. Still, it stung Booth's fingers to gently pull each book from its well-dusted shelf, knowing fully that Sweets had faithfully obsessed over and applied every scrap of information each one possessed.

(Once while trying to delay an uncomfortable topic, Booth had asked Sweets if he really had read all those books or if he was just trying to look smart. Jokingly, Sweets had offered to let Booth take them when he no longer needed them to impress his clients. He never thought they would need a new home so soon.)

(He thinks there's an empty bookshelf somewhere in the new mighty hut.)

After clearing the psychologist's bookshelf, the agent turned towards one of the young man's many overwhelmed tables, covered with papers and notepads strewn across the surface. Booth quickly shuffled the loose papers together, setting them in a neat stack by the books.

(He wonders how many uncompleted profiles were just packed away. How many lives just beginning to be analyzed—only to have the investigation simply cut…short.)

It took the older man a while longer to pack away the supplies scattered across the psychologist's main desk. Booth's hand froze when it came into contact with the coffee stained, color splattered mug Christine had tried to paint for Uncle Sweets' latest birthday. There were still remnants of the dark grounds scattered along the bottom of the mug. Taking a spare blanket from the man's closet, the former FBI special agent carefully wrapped the fragile piece of pottery.

(He can't decide who was more ecstatic about the gift—Christine, who offered it with poor wrapping and a wide grin, or Sweets, who refused to drink his morning coffee unless it was in her mug. Booth wonders if Christine will remember the mug in ten years, when it's chipped and faded. He wonders if she'll even remember Sweets in five years. He realizes he'll have to tell her, but he doesn't know how to break the news.)

(Booth hopes the mug doesn't shatter when he brings it home. He doesn't think he can handle another broken thing today.)

Booth remained silent as he took down the psychologist's various degrees hung with pride along the back wall. Even after knowing the kid for years and years, he still couldn't explain the surreal feeling he'd get when the dark haired agent always referenced his doctorate degree. Although Sweets had been often to remind anyone who'd listen, Booth never could manage to connect those flimsy scraps of paper hanging on the wall with all the knowledge in the shrink's head.

(During their first few therapy sessions, Booth was always delighted when Bones would insult Sweets' credentials and preference for the "softer" sciences. However, as their relationship deepened and the younger's advice was heeded, the very same happy thrill would always resurface whenever Bones grudgingly complimented the psychologist's work.)

Booth knew that the hardest part would be clearing out Sweets' desk drawers. From personal experience with his own keepsakes, the shrink's most favored and special trinkets and memories from work and daily life would find their home in the top drawer. Although it felt like an unforgivable betrayal to search through Sweets' personal effects, a small part of Booth burned with a muted curiosity to discover more about the shrink as if he was still numb to the realization that Sweets was actually dead and not just crafting a profile or getting tipsy after one too many beers.

Booth knew he was alone, but he still carefully reached for the top desk drawer, slow and delicate as if the psychologist would burst into the room at any moment and accuse him of prying. As Booth's fluttering fingers finally found the cold metal of the knob and pulled it backwards, he breathed deeply through his nose.

The drawer was about halfway full and contained a wide assortment of things that Booth might've called junk on another day. However, different circumstances made each scrap of paper and piece of plastic nearly as precious as the young man who had previously possessed them. Closing his eyes and reopening them after another few breaths, Booth reached for the first paper, gingerly pulling it out of its dusty home.

A dry, hoarse laugh broke from the agent's throat at the first object. It was Sweets' official certification for carrying a weapon, announcing to the world the young man's relatively lethal marksmanship skills.

(Booth can never forget the kid's expression when he discovered who his test proctor would be. Nor can he ever forget the kid's stupid grin—despite the blood, despite the shrapnel—when Booth grudgingly sighed and passed him. )

What had Sweets tried to tell them? That he had gotten a shot in? Wasting his precious moments left to try to reassure them that the bad guy hadn't gotten away unscathed. Trying with his last breath to make Booth proud of him one more time.

_Dammit, Sweets. You never gave me the chance to tell you. _

(He remembers that a week before the big test, Sweets spent nearly three hours every day practicing. The shrink was ridiculously happy when Booth "conveniently" managed to find some free time to help him out. Even now, Booth would still deny ever manipulating his schedule to help the young psychologist.)

(He wonders if he started helping Sweets earlier, then maybe the kid would still be here.)

With a sad sigh, Booth shook his head and set the certificate to the side. He reached down in the drawer and his fingers wrapped around the smooth, rubbery surface of an irregularly shaped object. Booth pulled it out and suppressed another pitiful laugh.

A scuffed, faded rubber duck. Booth had found it during one of their cases and tossed it to the psychologist, chuckling as the young man flailed to catch it, eyed the stained paint, and promptly dropped it with a horrified squawk. Although the toy was disgusting and worn, Booth still scooped it up and tucked it away, bringing it out occasionally during therapy sessions to further aggravate the young man, complete with sound effects.

(Completely exasperated by the relentless quacking and duck references, Sweets finally countered Booth, demanding an explanation for Bones' and the latter's behavior. Sweets had been relieved to discover it wasn't snide remarks for his "quack-babble" profession, but Booth thinks he never fully grasped the significance of the imprinting. Booth supposes that it's too late now to explain.)

The duck had disappeared after one session and Booth had given it up to the garbage disposal. He had strongly doubted that the pristine psychologist would ever want to keep something so degraded and ugly.

(Seeing it again makes Booth think that maybe, just maybe, the kid sort of understood after all.)

Unable to part with it again, the special agent carefully set the dirty toy beside the certificate to keep and reached back into the drawer. He pulled out a faded badge and smiled faintly. Sweets' first access pass card to the Jeffersonian. Cam and Angela had been able to tug on a few strings, enabling the psychologist to get permission for his own personal identification card for the Jeffersonian.

(Booth had been the one to hand Sweets the envelope on the latter's 23rd birthday—almost as an afterthought as they left the bar. The psychologist's polite, faintly disappointed smile at the forgotten birthday broke into a wide, open mouthed grin and an overjoyed "_seriously?"_)

Sweets' wide grin was evident in the photo, even though the repeated number of swipes had greatly discolored and scratched the id.

(Even Dr. Saroyan's stern warning wasn't enough to deter the psychologist's giddy joy when he swiped the card for the first time. He had almost snapped an ankle, coursing up every other step with eager bounds. He also nearly toppled into a set of remains, earning a dark glare from Dr. Brennan. Booth wonders if the kid had celebrated his 13th birthday instead.)

The next item Booth extracted was heart wrenchingly familiar enough to cause his vision to blur. It was a photograph Booth knew well from his time with Christine and Parker—the first sonogram of an unborn child.

_Sweets' _child.

Booth licked his dry lips and swallowed the sharp lump rising in his throat. This child would never know his father, but Booth was damn well positive that he would make sure this kid grew up loved and surrounded by family. After all, he was the god father now.

_God father._

The word dropped like a stone in Booth's gut. He had always thought of the term as a mere social pleasantry that would only morph into a tragic contingency at the very worst situation imaginable. When Sweets' revealed his request, Booth had been honored, never imagining in a million years that within days, he would be forced to take up such a weighty position. He needed Sweets for the minutest snag with his children—how the hell was he supposed to help raise the psychologist's son without the latter's advice?

Booth stared at the photo, realizing with every grainy dot and beautifully misshapen limb that he would adore the child no less than he loved Parker and Christine.

The special agent flipped the photo over and suppressed a choking sob as the lump in his throat bubbled up into a strangling gasp. Written in the shrink's messy, tight scrawl, Booth could make out a tiny name.

_Seeley Finley Sweets._

(He had thought Daisy had been purely joking when she let slip Sweets' desire to name the child after Booth. Booth plays back their conversation, realizing that what he had previously taken for sullen awkwardness was really the young man's own expression of tentative probing, as if he was gauging Booth's reaction. As if he was afraid that the older agent would laugh at the idea or refuse to share his name.)

Still in shock, Booth traced the letters with a light, hesitant finger. The Finley's had been Sweets' foster parents, his family before the bureau. Booth and the Jeffersonian crew were all a part of Sweets family afterwards. The child was going to be showered by love, both on earth and from above.

(Sweets had once asked where Parker's name came from. Reluctant to drudge up past memories, Booth still complied, spinning the tale of a young man's heroism and tragic death. Sweets merely nodded, not saying a word, and uttered a heavy sigh. Booth still can't decipher the psychologist's cryptic reaction and why he stills remembers it so vividly now.)

(Booth has a feeling that in a couple of years he'll be telling a similar story when people ask about the origin of the newest name. It'll be no less difficult, since each retelling will remind Booth of how he failed both of them.)

Booth set the sonogram gently to the side as if it were already the living, breathing infant.

_Sweets would have been a great father._

Booth sighed and closed his parted lips. It was no use dwelling in impossible futures. He turned back to the nearly empty drawer.

After removing a few other personal things, many of which came from Sweets elusive life before the Bureau, he fished around for a moment before scraping his knuckles against the grainy bottom of the drawer. He glanced down and noticed only one thing was left: a torn and crumpled sheet from a legal pad. Booth squinted at the shrink's scrawl across the top, feeling his lips move along with each word.

_Look, I hate to cut short my meeting with my sixth and eighth favorite people, but I got a date with my first favorite._

Booth blinked, overrun completely by a sense of déjà vu. Something about the phrase felt familiar, as if he had said it an infinity ago. He squinted at the corner, seeing the imprint of the date from whatever had been above it. It was from the day Bones proposed to him and was subsequently ripped away by Pelant's twisted game. Booth blinked again, repeating the words again to himself. His eyes trailed down the paper until they reached the list. Dr. Brennan. Christine and Parker. Pops. Jared.

Lance Sweets.

Booth's breath caught in his throat and he coughed lightly, blinking away the faint sting across his eyelids. Other names followed the psychologist's name: Cam, Ms. Julian, Angela, and Hodgins. However, now Booth was able to figure out the significance of the names. He was literally staring at a list of his favorite people in the world—his family and his closest friends.

With trembling hands, Booth slowly lowered the crumpled sheet of yellow paper. Bones was his soul mate. Parker and Christine were his kids. Pops was his father. Jared was his brother.

Sweets was his best friend.

Sweets was family.

Was.

_Was._

Still holding the faded paper in his fluttering fingers, Booth stepped backwards and collapsed into a half-squat by the psychologist's now empty desk.

The pain of his loss was finally starting to emerge from the numbing rush of the conspiracy investigation. It was raw and scarring, like tiny, aggressive cracks radiating throughout the past several years of his life. He wanted it to go away before he crumbled from the inside, but Booth couldn't imagine distancing himself permanently from something and someone that had impacted his life so greatly.

Sweets was like the little brother he never wanted but was so grateful to have had.

_Would it have better to have simply ducked out of therapy sessions and requested a new psychologist all those years ago? _Booth swallowed thickly. _Sweets would still be alive. He'd never leave his office. Never enter the field. We would just be total strangers, distant coworkers. _

Booth couldn't say that knowing the psychologist was best for everyone without feeling selfish, especially since Sweets affiliation with the Jeffersonian eventually led to his premature death.

But so many things would be different without Sweets—rather, they would be _wrong_. Booth tried to picture spilling his guts about his relationship with Bones to another, less involved psychologist with only disappointing results. It wasn't that Sweets merely clung to their case because it would possibly lead to an interesting journal article. Sweets all but forced himself into their lives because he recognized how precariously fragile their budding family was and unknowingly filled the role of catalyst with his own damaged desires for intimacy.

Sweets was the one who unraveled every forced, rigid strand that made up each member of the Jeffersonian team, and helped to build each person back up with stronger, more fortified relationships. He helped Hodgins. He helped Angela. He helped Cam. He helped Bones.

Sweets _saved_ him.

Booth slowly realized with another heavy swallow that although Sweets was the youngest by years and was often treated as the neediest, they were the ones who needed him more. They just couldn't see it until now.

(But now Booth knows. He finally understands what the young man meant with his dying words. The world isn't cruel or evil, even though it took away one of the brightest hearts ever created. It's simply indifferent. There is still good in the world that counteracts the bad. The days turn into night and the Earth spins on its axis into a new day, beginning the cycle again.)

(And each day Booth will look for something bright, just to prove the young man's dying words right.)

With a shallow breath, chased away by a stronger, more composed gulp of air, Booth slowly stood up. Steady hands smoothed the crumpled folds in the yellow paper, repairing some of its flaws when it was shoved in the dark drawer and subsequently torn.

(It isn't perfect yet, but Booth will find a way to fix it.)

* * *

**Thank you for reading. **Please let me know how it was. Also, I now feel obligated to finish up all of my Sweets-centric stories (so, basically _all_ of my Bones fics), so keep an eye out for them! Also, expect more angst 'cause I need to get it all out of my system.


End file.
